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07 October 2007

Lessons

Its taken me long enough to put a post in here about anything in general. As an update, it's been a funny couple of weeks. Since I've returned, there's been a marriage, a death, two accidents, potentially two trips.. if u could squeeze that all into just over a month, you've borrowed a piece of my life.

I may be 22 in age, but when i recently went to visit a friend in the hospital, who had fractured and literally broken his feet from an accident, I realize that its the first time I'm visting someone I know at the hospital.. who isn't in there to have a baby. The last time I think I've even been to the hospital for a visit, was to accompany DD at UH, when her cousin had a bike accident. And i do not know how to handle someone else's pain, (it can be masked, offcourse). I could offer to fluff their pillows, or bring a fresh bottle of water, buy car/bike magazines... but I could not feel their pain. And it was worrying, it appears to me that the girl who used to cry from seeing starving children in the papers, has faded with time.

Looking at an uncle's dead body at a funeral, I've also come to realize the reason behind the notion of the spirit/soul. Or atleast, what I think the reason is. It's the glassy/waxy look of the dead body, (caused ofcourse through the natural process of the body shutting down). When the face of a living person who you may have seen last week, looks today, upon death, like the face of a doll. When it seems like something has left their body, because you can no longer relate to that which you see in the glass box. It seems almost like in death, the body becomes the cheap imposter of the person who lived. And without you realizing it, somewhere between the bridges of life and death, something's happened to this person that you once knew, and maybe loved, that you weren't there to witness. Something that you can see but can sense. What has happened, can be explained by your religion.. or if your not inclined that way, your good sound scientific judgement should help.

If anything, the last month has thought me one very important lesson. It's easy to say goodbye to other people. But it's not easy to forget them. To see the ones that they left behind. To see the people who come to see them, inquire off them. The ones that exploit the death/accident to propogate their causes.

And in all this sadness, you begin to wonder if, perhaps, pain is the currency with which we pay for our lives. And maybe, just maybe, we choose to actively defy what is true, by being happy. Engaging in disillusionment and faulty dreams, knowing full well that what's behind that door is going to take it all away from us forever.

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ME

I am a woman of three cultures, straddling modernity, striving to accept tradition in the name of preserving culture and ultimately, loosing the battle by not getting anywhere~these should be apparent as you read my posts :)